Subject: Well, there is this.
Author:
Posted on: 2014-08-18 21:55:00 UTC
Thence my indecisive language. I'll be the first one to admit categories have exceptions and that they are, in the end, the creation of our mind.
Buuuuut that's another topic entirely.
All of my research into sue-wraith banishment says that any religion's banishment methods, adapted for use in PPC missions (IE replacement of the Bible with a source of canon), are acceptable banishment methods, yet I have only seen the Christian "Bell, Book, and Candle" method employed. Often, I don't even see the candle bit, only seeing a random bell and a source of canon employed.
The problem here is, I'm Wiccan. In Christianity, "magick" like banishment is simply having God solve the problem- hence hitting the possessed person with the Bible, symbolic of God's will.
In Wicca, magick- again, like banishment- is more hands-on, the gods entrust us to use our magickal energy to solve the problem. I see hitting a possessed canon with a source of canon and think, well, you're basically hitting a wraith with canon to get it out of canon.
Not really effective with my point of view.
Wiccan banishment often employs one of two approaches. The first is simply gathering up a lot of magick and willing the spirit out, but that's not really feasible here.
The second, however, is a lot better. An amulet or gem or doll or whatever is made and placed on the possessed person, er, character. Magick is then used to bind the spirit, er, wraith to the token instead of the canon, kinda like what a Crash Dummy does with first-person Sues, which- in my opinion- are Wraiths that exert a lot more control and control the reader (or, in this case, an agent) instead of a canon. The token is then terminated. (The ritual I got this from used bathwater that's dumped out instead of a token that's terminated, but it works either way.)
Of course, if you do something magick that's supposed to replace the Bell, Book, and Candle, it needs to be surrounded by a ritual. Events of a ritual:
>Casting a circle of sacred space. This acts as a kind of "church". Like the implementation of the Bell, Book, and Candle approach, this can be done practically anywhere.
>Call the Quarters. These spirits represent the elements, the four cardinal directions, and attributes of humanity.
>Call the God and Goddess (essentially, all of the gods and goddesses condensed into two holy entities) to watch over the ritual. Obviously, I'll fill in here with the author instead of the actual God and Goddess, the same way that Bell, Book, and Candle banishments will say that the author, and not God, compels the wraith to leave.
>Do the deed. This will be binding the wraith to the token.
>Cakes and Ale are blessed and passed around. This is a generalization, as the "ale" can be any drink and the "cakes" can be any baked good. Obviously, I'll stick to canon, like Sandviches or Bread and rum or whiskey from the Demoman's loadout for TF2, or milk and cupcakes for MLP. I'll also go ahead and throw out the "baked good" requirement for Cakes if necessary- like, if I would need to go into a canon without baked goods, I'd use any kind of food. (I'll also have Cheesy lampshade that, yes, if it weren't for the fact that it's part of the ritual, it'd be a complete waste of time.)
>The God and Goddess are "released" (really, nothing is keeping them there except for politeness), then the Quarters.
>Finally, the Circle is 'opened', and the agents can get to the dirty work of neuralyzing the canon and executing the bound wraith.
Yes, it's a lot more drawn-out than the simple and climactic Bell, Book, and Candle, and already, I see a problem with my characters- Cheesy flat-out refuses to eat and drink due to regarding digestion as disgusting, which puts a knot in the middle of Cakes and Ale.
Your thoughts?
Prompted by the discussion of Anebrin, I got to pondering whether agents from canon worlds would (or could) use canonical banishment methods. Which, of course, took me back to Middle-earth. In Arda, there are basically two methods of driving out evil.
1/ Song. Finrod duels with Sauron in song, Luthien uses it to bring down Minas Tirith (the original), I believe Sam or Frodo attempt this against Shelob (and fail, but still). The Elven languages actually work pretty well on their own - Aiya Earendil elenion ancalima! - as well.
2/ Eldarin artefacts. The Silmarilli are obviously the number one suspect - they burn unclean flesh, purified Beren's chewed-off hand, glorified Earendil, and - in the form of the Star-glass - drove off Shelob for a time. But there's also the Three Rings - Nenya in particular is depicted as holding evil out of Lorien - certain swords - Anduril, Ringil-which-wounded-Morgoth - and even such trivials as the jewel Arwen gave to Frodo (in the book), which helped him recover to some extent from his Morgul-wound.
Essentially, these two invoke a) the Music of the Ainur, and b) the Light of Valinor, either directly or through the works of the Light-Elves. To cast out spirits of uncanon, we'd need to tweak things. The song we use would have to be a canon song; instead of Elven artefacts, we'd use things made by the creator. Which leads to this scene:
Suddenly I have the image of an elf in pony disguise belting out "Giggle at the Ghosties" to drive a wraith out of a pony.
Anyways, MLP canon-based banishment would, by my understanding, require the agents to somehow acquire and use the Elements of Harmony- which pretty much screams either "sue" or "impossible".
However, a Pokemon canon-based banishment would definitely be possible. Wraiths seem to have all the trappings of a ghost, so the weaknesses of a ghost- or in this case, a ghost-type- so naturally it'd be weak to ghost-type and dark-type moves.
Unfortunately, I don't see any applications that wouldn't also hurt the host canon that Cheesy could learn, so that rules out a Pokemon canon-based banishment.
So yeah, I guess I'll have to stick with Cheesy using primarily the B.B.& C. method, and Haze using the Wiccan ritual.
(Just make sure the agent knows all the words. Imagine trying to banish an Attack on Titan Sue with Guren no Yumiya.)
Also, I remember that in a few really bad missions, the act of quoting canon itself was enough to restore a bit of stability to the Word World. I was thinking that if an agent wanted to be dramatic, he/she/it/xe could quote canonical poetry.(This would probably work best in the Redwall fandom. Seriously, long, plot-relevant poetry is everywhere in Mossflower.)
The trick is to make the connection between world-centred banishments and canon-centred ones. As you said of the Wiccan technique, the God & Goddess would be replaced by the creator of the canon, and the food would vary depending on location (and, I might venture to add, in canons where there are canonical equivalents to the Quarters, they might be substituted too; the four Greek wind gods could show up in Percy Jackson, for instance). In the Ardan version, you use a canon song and an author artefact, rather than any song and an Elvish artefact.
So, Pokemon. As you say, using ghost or dark-type moves takes down ghosts. There's also the Silph Scope, which lets you see/identify obscured ghosts.
Stepping back, can we use an actual Silph Scope? I'm gonna go with no, because if canon characters could see slash wraiths by looking through one, we'd be in a world of trouble. So how about just taking the general effect of 'look through a thing to identify wraiths', and literally look through the canon? That could be peering through the hole in the centre of a DVD, or between the pages of a book. Kind of interesting.
So, with the wraith visible, you need to hit it. You can't use dark- or ghost- moves -- but you can use the things themselves. Chucking a previously-jarred wraith at the possessed character's head should do the trick. ;) Or, potentially, turning the lights off, though I think that would be too general to drive a wraith out. It could weaken it, though - and something like a cloud of smoke could drive it out.
But the key is, you have to be able to see it to do those things. Unless you're looking through the hole in the DVD, you can muck about with the lights all you want; it won't do a blessed thing.
As for MLP, I know far less, but again, substitute 'canonical' for 'canon'. Rather than the Elements of Harmony themselves, pick objects related to the canon or fandom that embody the same principles. Honesty could be a critical review, or an interview with the creator/s. Laughter could be a particularly funny episode - or line, if you don't want to muck about with physical objects. Loyalty might be embodied in the person of the agent, if they're a really dedicated fan. Generosity could be a DVD that was given as a present, kindness maybe fanart or something... and to blur the canonical/canon boundary a bit, you could use magic to apply the previous five to the possessed character and drive the wraith out.
Again, all of that can be cross-applied to other canons. All you need is a dedicated fan/agent to yell a funny line, holding the interview and fanart printed on a page in one hand, their gifted DVD/book in the other, and using some form of magic - or even scifi-type 'magic' - to drive out the wraith.
hS
I doubt Cheesy would ever actually look through the pages of a book. He'd more likely scan or obtain a digital version and burn it onto a DVD or other optical disk. And I'm thinking that Cheesy would need to target the Wraith, not the canon- which I picture as hanging over the canon and treating it like a marionette. It strikes me as an even faster idea than the Bell, Book, and Candle- which makes it even funnier when he smacks a Wraith out of thin air in the middle of casting circle.
The thing about the Elements of Harmony is that only a handful of ponies couild use them at any given time, and they'd all have to be present- and even then, they'd need to actually believe in their elements,and until they get Rainbow Power, have the actual elements. A single pony agent doing that, even with analogues to the Elements, is no small feat, and like I said the first time, borders on Sueish.
Hmmm, it seems that exorcisms work because the agent believes that they do. If a pony agent strongly believes that tokens representing the elements can draw on their importance, it should be powerful enough to drive out non-canons.
I don't think that agents always adapt the entire ritual to the canon they're in, though they might adjust the flavor if they have time. It seems they call on the author, not the local deities. Though it seems like musicians get a cd playing one of their own songs.
I need to do more research, but I'm leaning towards one of my agents honestly believing that just yelling and hitting a possessed canon can drive a wraith out, but using canon sources makes it work faster with less bruising.
True, very true. Still not liking the idea, though. Maybe I'll try it in a mission...
The bit about an agent honestly believing that Bell, Book, and Candle can be reduced to noise and melee weapons is an interesting idea, although there are cases where the belief that such can happen could waver- I.E. where a possessed canon gets hit in-fic by a particularly loud monster and is still possessed.
Yeah, I'm probably only going to do it once on-screen simply because the agents have no clue where the possessed canon comes from. (Intel mistook it for an OC.)
Though you brought up something interesting. What if exorcism also works by how strong the audiences belief should be? Basically if the beta can poke a hole in it, gotta switch methods.
Think of it this way. You've exorcized canons tons of times with a method, and it works. Then, suddenly, a possessed canon does it to him/herself and it doesn't work. No matter how many times you do it, the wraith has basically proven itself immune to that exorcism method, and could possibly shake the agent's faith in the method.
But really, everything is like that. If you can't hold up your audience's Willing Suspension of Disbelief™, you're doing something wrong.
Also, if Intel- or anyone, really- could possibly mistake a canon for an OC, that would make it, by neccessity, a Replacement, not a possessed canon. (Possession means it's extremely OOC, but you can at least recognise that it's still the character.)
I could see that happening. Might be interesting to find a wraith who is actually performing the BBC method in a fic and have the agents have to justify that it's not expelling itself because the intent isn't targeting itself, and he's not using a source of canon.
The instance I'm talking about is very strange. Real world and two canons crossover, the one character seems to be possessing two different canons at different times. Turns out that what is thought to be his "true form" is actually a third canon from an unmentioned game, and whoever sorted it would have needed to really pay attention to spot that.
He's out-of-context and not iconic. The possessing force has demonstrated the ability to change the eye-color of its host. Here are the clues about who he is in the fic...
He was dressed like a beatnik, black turtleneck and pants. He was absurdly pale with dark hair, but his strangest feature was his vibrant purple eyes. No one had eyes that color, and they seemed to have a subtle glow that couldn't have been caused by contacts. Somehow, he seemed familiar.
At that moment, a figure appeared on the beach. It was the Gamester in the beatnik form that he had first appeared to me in. I realized that the deathly pale skin made this form resemble the Queen, but the resemblance was a coincidence. I was sure that this was an established character from another game, and that his eyes should be red. The Gamester's mannerisms fit in with this form almost perfectly.
I'm certainly not planning on using it; I was just throwing out first-thought ideas. Take it, modify it, whatever you like it.
The Elephants of Harmony - this seems to be the same sort of objection as 'only a priest can conduct an exorcism!' or 'you need to be high enough level to knock out the ghost-type even with a type advantage!'. You're not trying to use the actual Elegance of Balmory - you're trying to invoke the real-world equivalents. Which are rather less of a handful. And there's no reason it would have to be a pony agent - non-Earth agents have been using the pseudo-Christian technique for decades!
But despite that: I agree. ;) It was cobbled together to show that it could be done, but it's a bit weak. The problem is there's nowhere to simply slot the canon in, unlike replacing the book, the Silmaril, the G&G, or the Silph Scope. So it's difficult.
Oh, and: just when you think you're having original ideas... Girls Next Door has done something very similar to this for Labyrinth-verse. Though it hasn't had to be used. Yet.
hS
My thoughts in response fall into, mm, three categories:
1/ The 'bell, book, and candle' description seems inaccurate - most exorcisms I've seen (or written!) don't include bells or candles - just hitting the uncanon with the canon to, as I think you've said elsewhere, overwrite the uncanon/reinforce the canonical aspects. But still, I guess the 'Book' aspect is vaguely Christian-inspired. This is just a nitpick. ;)
2/ Training. Specifically, the 'Christian' exorcisms have been so universal that agents are clearly being trained in them - that's the only explanation for everyone using them. Still, the belief-related aspects of the PPC - such as 'it's a bit of a maze, unless you hadn't noticed' - mean that, essentially, any method you think will work... should work. I think you've had that conversation with Nesh, so I won't take it further; just note that most agents will use the traditional method, because they're trained in it.
2.5/ Which invites the specific question: why are your agents breaking the trend? Cheesy is electronic, so I assume he doesn't have a religion, and therefore wouldn't be inspired to come up with this. I don't know about his partner, but the question is one you should answer to your own satisfaction. Simply a trainer who bucks the trend would work, of course - or even just reading about it.
3/ Time. The reason the 'throw the book at them' method works so well is that it's really, really quick. Take, for instance, Jay's experience in Torment - she had an incantation in there (which we all forget these days, go figure), and it still took too long. How long does it take to cast a circle and do a bunch of calling? How long will the binding take? Those parts have to be done against a possessed canon who's trying to get away from you. And the cakes & ale, releasing, and opening have to be done with an in-character canon sitting in the middle of it. How many of them are going to sit still for that?
To me, this suggests that any agents using this approach will very quickly come up with ways to streamline it. If a physical circle is required, they'd prepare it in advance and lure the canon in where possible. Is there any way to push some of the work off onto artefacts, rather than saying it all 'longhand' at the time? If you can (say) call the Quarters by throwing down four painstakingly-inscribed stones - totally random example - then you could get that done really quickly. Et ketera et ketera.
hS (apologies for abrupt ending; have to go)
1: It's named the Bell, Book, and Candle method because the old "hit them with canon" is a simplification of that Christian banishment ritual. Mainly because I've seen numerous references to actual bells and candles.
2 & 2.5: Cheesy isn't bucking the trend when solo. He'll usually carry around a canon bludgeoning device (i.e. a Sandman from TF2) modified to hide a flash drive with a copy of canon inside. However, Haze bucks the trend because he, through his logic, simply can't figure out how hitting a wraith with canon wouldn't end up driving the wraith further into canon, and even damaging canon directly.
3: Absolutely none. Which is why a running gag will (eventually) be that while Haze is attempting to set the ritual up, Cheesy will go ahead and hit the wraith out of the ballpark without him.
Of course, a whole lot of the talking of the ritual can be streamlined, for example, from "Great guardians of the Watchtower of the East, spirits of Air, we call thee to attend our ritual tonight. Blessed be," to simply, "AIR!" Probably the first driving the second to happen.
Regarding hS's first point:
Seeing as DVDs have been used as much as books, I always just thought of hitting the uncanon with canon was a blunt instrument because it had to be a kind of spiritual slaying rather than physical one to start with, so you literally bash it out with the distilled essence of canon--and what is more so than the actual method by which canon has been delivered to you? Be it book, movie, video game, or whatever.
I'm not Christian either, so from my own perspective, it always made sense as a kind of displacement of water by objects. Think about canon as a liquid, with a set size--which sometimes gets added to, sometimes not--and these uncanon things are being dumped in and precious canon is spilling over the sides. So you forcibly shove them aside with true Canon, they are displaced in turn, and the proper amount of Canon remains. It's just physics, really.
This time I'm not posting the link, but instead asking for betareaders. I've learned my lesson.
I recently read the first Hunger Games book, and as a Minecraft player (I'm "Lunamann" in Minecraft, perhaps the PPC could make a faction in some server?) I was struck by not only some glaring parallels to Minecraft in the book (District 12 is a coal mining district, it's protected by a fence from wild animals- just like the fences erected by many Minecraft players to keep villages safe from mobs, et cetera), but the glaring differences many Minecraft implementations of Hunger Games had to the book.
First off, the Corn (Minecraftian short name for the Cornucopia) rarely actually looks like a cornucopia, and in FPShg, the Hunger Games from MCBrawl, there isn't a Corn.
Second, in the Book, when players enter the game, in the book they are in spots around the Corn surrounded by mines, and if they step off thier square, in Minecraft terms, they explode. Upon the minute being up the mines are turned off. While most implementations in block form include the spots around the Corn (and indeed, this is probably a good reason why the Corn typically is accessible from all sides instead of the one side a book-style Corn would have), you're either stuck and unable to leave your spot until it begins, or you can move but the game pulls you back like a leash- this is most noticeable in Mineplex, where it's the latter, and players often abuse it, resulting in players teleporting to where they actually are when the game starts and forgets to pull players back where they're supposed to be.
Third, chests. In Minecraft, almost all Hunger Games games are "find chests outside the Corn to get supplies". This NEVER happens in the book, the closest being Rue's homemade slingshot. Also, supply drops in the book (where essentially, a "chest" of something parachutes to where you are) only are implemented in FPShg, where you get one after so many kills.
I could go on and on about this, but you get the picture. Hunger Games as it's implemented is a lot of fun, but I also want to see a more canon-correct version. I often see a lot of things some servers do canonically right while others don't- like the Deep Freeze in Mineplex's Survival Games, which is a parallel to the game coordinators creating natural disasters like forest fires and droughts to push the contestants closer to each other instead of simply warping them to the Corn like other servers do (not that that doesn't happen anyways), or the supply drops in FPShg, which unlike Mineplex's renamed Feasts, actually act like the supply drops in the book. However, they always do something wrong, and 9999 times out of 10,000, usually it's the random hidden chests of items that appear absolutely nowhere in the book.
Your thoughts on this?
My Minecraft username is "Geosternbergia" (after the pterosaur genus).
I'm honestly not sure how to respond to all of this, as most of my knowledge about Minecraft Hunger Games is from watching BajanCanadian's vids. I'm game for a canon-correct version too, but it will probably take a LOT of plugins to pull off correctly, and most servers are capable of pulling off only a few of the necessary details. Getting rid of hidden chests would be interesting but I think it would be pretty tedious too, since you'd have to craft all the weapons and items you use from scratch.
A PPC Minecraft faction would be hilariously awesome. If only I had the time to play the game itself anymore, I'm hopelessly behind because of college...
Well, if we did a faction, we'd need to choose a server for it. Any suggestions?
And as cool as the Deep Frreze feature is (hurr durr puns), I personally find it very annoying because in almost every othe server, I like to hide near the borders and nab chests along the way. :P
Speaking of the PPC in Minecraft, I built my RC in Creative mode once. I rather like it. Stone works very well for Generic Surface, and Glowstone covered by grey carpet makes lighting less obvious.
You'd given me a good idea. Kinda like a plotbunny, but not, because it's for a Minecraft texture pack, not a fic.
Ideas:
>Generic Surface stone. As in, completely gray and featureless. Alternatively, wool would be a flat texture and generic surface be gray wool.
>Stone brick would be concrit, mainly coming off of the Wiki's describing the material as if it's bricks of concrete. I'm thinking unreadably-small "text" written on the brick in red. (Why unreadably-small? Simple- so I don't have to think up what to write on it.)
>Many other textures similarly have unreadable "text" written on them in black writing, as if you're in a Word-World.
>Retextured Zombies, Skeletons, Creepers, Spiders, and other hostile mobs are textured to look like Sues.
>1.7.X because I work with 1.7.2.
Your thoughts and/or suggestions?
We need to have a list of PPC boarders with thier MC names. Or- better yet- a bunch of PPC people go to a factions server and make a giant PPC faction.
Trust me, it'd be awesome.
It would have its very own HQ and whenever someone joined up, their first order of business would be to build their RC!
Personally, I would prefer building a faction base. Any time someone joined, they'd build thier own RC as a new room added to the complex, until the halls become just as confusing as they're supposed to be.
Naturally, it'd be mostly underground to fend off complaints about the random look such a building would take on the outside.
But what's to stop random players from digging in accidentally?
That's what a faction server is all about. You claim land and nobody else can build on it and break its blocks but your faction. (Typically this also extends to opening crates, opening doors, and redstone input beyond pressure plates.)
You can only claim as much land as you have enough faction power to keep. You gain around 10 faction power per player in the faction, and each time a player dies they lose 1 faction power.
You then engage in "raids". Raids involve the repeated killing of an enemy faction's players until they've lost enough 'faction power' to allow you to claim thier land.
It sounds pretty neat, but I don't know if that's what would be the best for a Minecraft version of the PPC, even if it was just the Boarders and not the Agents. Still, that's cool.
It's the first multiplayer Minecraft type I ever played, and yes, it's very fun.
The problem is, what would Concrit be if Stone is Generic Surface?
I myself would use clay blocks as Generic Surface (or magenta wool if it were to be through the eyes of Cheesy), but that's just my opinion.
Speaking of PPC in Minecraft, 99.999% of the Minecraft-related fanfics in the Pit are about Youtubers like DanTDM, SkyDoesMinecraft, and StampyLongNose. I know because I actually tried to find one that wasn't at one point in time.
...sigh.
But over time they've developed into their own game. If you look at most servers, they no longer call it "Hunger Games" instead it's more commonly known as "Survival Games" or some variation thereof. The problem is is that whilst we can do many amazing things with Minecraft, there are limitations to it and creating an accurate Hunger Games map is just one of those things that falls outside the limitations, and the "Survival Games" are the best we can do to try and copy it.
1) It still acts as a Cornucopia though does it not? (bearing in mind I've only watched the first film, and that was almost 2 years ago). I can't say I've played on MCBrawl, but both Hive and Mineplex (the two I regularly visit) do both have a Corn in every single one of their maps
2) That's not really viable. The most basic way to make mines of that kind would be to have pressure plates on a block with TNT underneath said block, but then there's no way of making it so the TNT doesn't blow up without completely removing the pressure plates, and if the TNT is too close to another bit of TNT from another person's starting block. BOOM. One big chain reaction that would kill every player on the board from the start. Any other way of wiring up TNT and pressure plates to make sure it went off if a person stepped on said pressure plate, but could also be made to stop the TNT from activating after a certain time limit would be either too impractical for a decent amount of players or too slow such that by the time the TNT explodes the person is far enough away such that they won't be hurt too bad by the TNT. Also if you didn't have explosion damage turned off you could potentially take out some of the delicate Redstone wiring that I know some people put under their maps, or you could give players blocks which they could use later to either reach a previously inaccessible place,or block themselves in etc.
3) Most chests are just scattered around because otherwise it would be a very quick game, the game itself would need to be set on Peaceful mode to stop people becoming starving to fast and dying due to hunger, yet be on Normal or above difficulty so that the health regen. is not too quick so Chests need to be around for food at least. Also chests drop in on Mineplex once a Minecraft day (or rather night) at one of several locations around the map, that (normally) hasn't been taken over by the Deep Freeze. The Compass will point towards the place the "Supply Drop" will land during the night (whilst during the day it points to the closest player) and the supply drops normally have very good armour/weapons in them. I believe Hive has something implemented, but can't remember for certain, however I do know that at Minecraft midnight every chest is refreshed so it has new items in it, but that's not quite along the same lines
Like I said earlier, there are just too many limitations in Minecraft to truly make a cannon-complaint Hunger Games in it.
Storme Hawk
(Storm_hawk in Minecraft)
1: Well, yes. They do. Even though it doesn't look like a Corn, it does function exactly like one. That's not my problem, however.
As for MCBrawl's FPShg, you start with a kit- like, so much armor, and so much food, and guns and ammo- because the whole theme of MCBrawl is guns in Minecraft. You then "parachute" down onto the map, and afterwards is a brief safe period in which you take no damage, solving problems with landing in trees and whatnot.
Which, by the way, I think safe periods are idiotic as regards to canon. The whole point of the Cornucopia in the book was that half of the kids die right then because THERE IS NO SAFE PERIOD.
2: Well, as mines, you're right. It'd end up blowing up pretty much everyone, and it'd be impossible to disable. However, you could set it up to make an explosion-like effect and kill the player if they stepped outside before time, via the same kind of mods that allow non-piston-related keeping them in thier spots and Mineplex's ground-level fireworks when you kill people.
3: You have a point. However, my main problem with Mineplex's "Supply Drops" is that the concept Mineplex is using is a chest spawning at a common location everyone knows and/or is informed of- which in the book, is called a Feast. Supply drops in the books are meant for specific players and parachute down to them instead of requiring them to find them, which FPShg does pretty well. (It also has HUGE feasts of tons of chests, but I digress.)
You're right, it's virtually impossible to get rid of the hidden chests all over the map. But some things can follow canon, right?
Right?
As others have said, the possibilities are quite interesting, and none of my Agents have any reason to stick to the, um, "Christian" way of banishing Sues (Agent!Des is atheistic, Anebrin probably believed in some sort of nature believe - he's an elf - and the Librarian is a Time Lord). While I didn't write any wraith banishing scenes yet, I will keep this in mind when the time comes. Thanks for bringing this up.
Wicca is a nature-based religion. Just something to think about when you do Anebrin. Of course, he's an elf, and nowhere does it say that's he's actually Wiccan, but still something to think about.
I'm not writing him any more; I wrote him out of my spinoff two missions ago. That said, he's an Irdyan elf. The source material doesn't have lots on their religion, though there are some oaths ("By all that is green!" and "By Lintanir!" were suggested by the devs) and a possible malevolent deity/demon - Yechnagoth, the eater of souls.
Wicca has no "malevolent" dieties. In fact, the whole concept is thought of as an idiotic mistake. You're giving evil a name, and to give something a name is to give it power- which means that you're setting yourself up for trouble.
However, we do have dieties of chaos, like Set- and just like Discord from MLP or the "chaotic good" and "chaotic neutral" alignments prove, chaos is by no means necessarily evil- and "Dark Ladies"- gods like Bastet and Hecate, who are "benevolent" dieties- they just have really interesting ways of showing that. (as Ellen Cannon Reed wrote in Circle of Isis,
"Dark Ladies will hit you on the head with a 2 x 4 (just to get your attention) and say 'Hey! You screwed up! Fix it!' They will call a spade a spade, and they will tell you the truth, whether you want to hear it or not, and they will teach you the Mysteries of the Universe!"
To cut it short, if Yechnagoth is a deity, your character can't be Wiccan.
I don't think Wicca exists in Irdya. Plus, he's an OC from an established setting, so I have to follow canon guidelines. Or rather, had, because the most he'll appear in my spinoff will be cameos.
I had never thought about non-bell-book-candle exorcisms in the PPC before now. It's definitely something I wish I had considered, if only for the fact that it opens up the possibility for new and interesting twists on the old familiar formula.
Agents should theoretically be able to use any method, whether from the real world or fiction, to bind and banish author-wraiths. The main issue is making whatever you choose pragmatic enough to neither risk the lives of the agents nor require a great deal of time consuming clean-up. You could use the mood slime from Ghostbusers II as an exorcism method, for example, but they you have to deal with canonicals that are covered with goo.
Like Nesh said before, exorcism is one of those PPC things that "works because you want it to." Neither of my Bad Slash exorcists have any backstory-supported reason to believe in the Christian trappings surrounding the bell, book, and candle ritual (and I am definitely one of the worst offenders when it comes to not including the bell and candle parts in the actual exorcism.) Their reasonings seem to be "this will work because this is how I was trained" for Xericka and "this is how they did it in all those dumb B-movies I watched when I was a kid, so why shouldn't it work" for Gremlin.
That also brings up a point. Most actual Wiccan rituals end up with an altar in the center and candles, statues, or even- I've seen it before- swords at the edges of the circle, in the cardinal directions, to stand for the Quarters. This of course would take a lot of clean-up.
However, the altar and candles aren't strictly necessary. And as a bonus, when casting the circle, you don't even have to mark it. Recently, my family did a ritual with none of that- the only thing we did was toss colored smoke bombs to the edges of the huge circle for the Quarters, and we had a picnic table nearby to put the Cakes and Ale (cookies and sparkling grape juice) on while we did magick.
The Agents can do as little or as much altar/circle setup as they want, but I'll probably do it only as much as we did then- somewhere to put the Cakes and Ale, and something canonical at the edges to represent the Quarters.
As an example, in TF2, they'd use a Buff Banner bugle for Air, a flamethrower or sword (swords are tied to Fire) for Fire, a medigun for Water (because healing and blood are tied to Water), and a Homewrecker (sledgehammer, because hammers are often tied to Earth) for Earth.
I've read that humans are born with everything they truly need to work magic. It was probably Silver Ravenwolf who made the joke "she came with a cup and an anthame (ouch) I just know she'll be a witch."
It might be a case of them tailoring the ritual to how much time they have, like how some skip the candles and just start hitting the characters with dvd boxes.
I could see Cheesy discovering the reasons for the cakes and ale and want to start using his own method. Or he stops making a fuss about eating.
Hence their ability to keep everything minimal. And no, Cheesy's not going to just eat without complaining about how unnecessary and disgusting the whole matter is. He's going to get an alternative method that works just as well for him, and he's probably going to be the one that will suggest the alternate methods instead of the Cakes and Ale to begin with. It'll be his fault that, say, Pinkie Pie will end up in, say, Lyra's body. (Read my reply about the alternative methods for why.)
Also, I'm surprised that you apparently read a book by Silver Ravenwolf, yet forgot that Wiccan magick is spelled with a K. I thought it was something she brought up...
I thought about that, but someone was going to joke about the spelling mistake if I did it right. I thought the magick thing came from the internet. It was around in the 90's at least.
It's spelled that way to differentiate between Wiccan magick and illusionary, entertainment-level magic. (Of course, the line blurs when we get into magick in a 'magic' setting like MLP or Harry Potter...)
It is interesting to see a religion that isn't "subjugate and kill all heretics!!!!11111!!!!eleventyone", which is, unfortunately, the most common kind herearounds.
Another name for a "Wiccan" is a "Witch", and indeed, we identify with victims of the Inquisition. Granted, it was aimed at Satanists and not, in fact, the nature-based religions that Wicca and other Neopagan religions are based off of, but we believe that many members of said nature-based religions were caught in the crossfire, pardon the pun. (As an aside note, Salem today is home to many, many, MANY Witches.)
That being said, we DON'T hold it against today's Christians. The ship sailed MANY, MANY, MANY years ago, and any resentment that still exists is torward pushy evangelicals.
I live in Israel, so the neighbourhood is less Christian and more (immediately) Jewish and (a bit more distant) Muslim. Now, both the Haredim and the various Muslim extremist groups are nasty, though admittedly the Haredim did not reach the "kill the heretics" stage yet.
Of course, the Muslim groups that did reach that stage are too many to count.
Seeing as I live in the United States, I've heard a bit more about radical Islamic terrorism than I'd like to. (You know, 9/11, war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Boston Marathon, all that jazz.)
Personally, I'd like to hand copies of the Qur'an to those radical Muslims and tell them to actually read it. Islam is supposed to be a peaceful religion.
However, the topic being on Wicca lead me to think "burn at stake" when I saw "kill heretics".
I disagree about Islam being a peaceful religion, but that sort of topic is best discussed privately - it's a bit... flame bait-y. If you want to continue, you have my e-mail.
I'm reluctant to grab the old Flame-thrower in this case, expecially since I have zero evidence to back that claim up, and you're probably someone more qualified than me to make such a judgement, being in Israel and all.
While I've seen, in various degrees of closeness, cases of Islamic religious violence, that does not automatically make your position moot. If you think you have no evidence, go look for it. Aside from being a fun thing to do in and of itself, IMO, what you might find might surprise you.
Also, in general, do not assume too quickly. It's a good way to make wrong calls. Be patient. Learn. Think. Ask.
(... that sounds really odd in my head right now.)
*Glances at original topic* Perhaps you were possessed? XD
Anyways, I looked it up, and according to Wikipedia, well... aparrently, there's this thing called Jihad, and...
Basically, I was wrong by a LONG shot.
Generally, it's right and Islam is not exactly a peaceful religion, cf. Daash, Hizballah, Alqaeda, the Taliban, etc, etc, etc, etc, but Wikipedia's usually a shitty source as far as research goes.
According to the article, there's actually a controversy in the Muslim community over the true meaning of Jihad, from internal struggle against evil, to evangelical-ish work, to warfare.
And yes, I know that Wikipedia's a shitty source, but here's at least one source testifying to that:
"As with “cat” and “power,” so is it with the vocabulary of religions. The word “jihad” when used by Sufi mystics refers to the great internal battle against the ego and the struggle to overcome one’s pride in order to step closer to God. In the hands of political Islamists, on the other hand, the same signifier may refer to a political struggle to win control of the state apparatus. In the hands of others, it may refer to holy war. Note that all of them are using the same signifier—jihad—to communicate things that are rather different."
I guess how violent Islam is depends on what group of Muslims you're referring to or something.
Or, more generally: don't confuse people with beliefs. That goes both ways - don't claim all of Islam (or any other belief/other system in any other discussion) is like a certain group, but equally, don't claim a certain group must do something because that's (your understanding of) their beliefs.
The fact that not all Muslims are peaceful does not make a definitive statement about the peacefulness of Islam as a concept. Equally, the fact that, oh, Hinduism is a religion from India - doesn't mean that all Hindus you meet will necessarily be Indian. (Chosen as a non-controversial example)
And remember the Constitution. ;) Don't let this interesting discussion of your slide sideways into anything-bashing. You're not, but it's a topic where that could happen, so I'm just stopping by to issue an unnecessary reminder. :D
hS
Thence my indecisive language. I'll be the first one to admit categories have exceptions and that they are, in the end, the creation of our mind.
Buuuuut that's another topic entirely.
There was a story involving a botched exorcism and it being explained that perhaps the exorcism failed because she didn't believe it would work. I can't remember enough details to find it now.
I did find some stories where they put the author-wraith in a jar. They're linked from the Department of Bad Slash page.
Yeah, that's actually pretty common.
I'd definitely be interested in seeing alternative banishment methods put into practice. It falls more or less into the category of "it works because you want it to," so there's really no reason why not. The challenge, as you've discussed, is to simplify it enough to be practical.
For the cakes and ale, what is the function they serve in the ritual? Kinda seems like it's just to make everyone feel better after what could be a harrowing experience, and may not be necessary, but correct me if I'm wrong.
You might be interested in reading Phobos' mission "I Know What You Did Last Night," in which a Sue-wraith breaks out of a binding circle and attacks the agents because one of them, a Potterverse witch, thinks the "bell, book, and candle" ritual is silly. (She discusses it with a FicPsych nurse in the next mission, "Cosmic Love.")
~Neshomeh
I'm not really sure what the actual purpose of Cakes and Ale in a ritual, but I do know that the ingestion of food helps you to "ground" yourself.
...
Anyways, after the use of magick, you're left a bit drained and, depending on what you actually did, you might need help re-bolting your spirit into your real world (say, if you used magick and meditation to world-walk. Not going into detail on that, as it doesn't apply here.)
The purpose of the Cakes and Ale here is to allow the agents to rest and regain their energy so they can forge on with any other parts of the mission, like terminating the token. As for the canon- which I'm going to have join in on this- it's going to have a calming effect, kinda like chocolate would after a Dementor attack in the Potterverse, and is going to help bolt their own spirits back into the canon and into their own bodies. (This is, of course, explained by Haze when Cheesy complains.)
Now that that's out of the way, Agent Decima's (not Phobos, Decima) encounter with lack of belief in Bell, Book, and Candle could have been something Haze heard about, prodding him into finding this alternative method of banishment when he questions how beating something with canon will expel them out of a canon, and what purpose the Candle even has.
Cheesy, however, will still have a bit of faith in the "source code" (read: canon) as a weapon. Hence, his attaching flash drives with digital copies of canons to various weapons for that extra damage multiplier against Sues. His reasoning is that he's "overwriting" the Sue with canon events.
So presumably, one could substitute whatever they personally find to be grounding/centering/restorative?
A thought: the more complicated the ritual is, the more chances there are for it to go wrong in a high-stress, unfriendly situation like a badfic. That could make for some interesting storytelling, especially if they have to do it often.
And yeah, Decima is the agent who had trouble. Phobos is the author of the mission (and also my husband). {= )
~Neshomeh
The thing about Cakes and Ale is that it's a catchall. It does both jobs- grounding and centering as well as restoring. If you need to substitute, you'll have to substitute with something that's probably more specialized.
For example, listening to calming music would definitely work for the Agents, who need to rest and regain strength. However, it's a bad idea for the canons to simply listen to calming music, because the whole point of the music is to sweep you away. Right then is when they're most vulnerable to their spirit- here, their actual characterization- being lost somewhere and, best case scenario, ending up stuck inside a background character, who doesn't have characterization to begin with and is a perfect place for lost characterization to end up. (I'm calling it now, this happens to an MLP character. It'll be easy seeing as there's so many well-known background characters to choose from.) Calming music leads to wandering minds, which in this weakened state leads to wandering characterization. It's used as meditation music for a reason.
As for complications in the ritual, yes, that is a problem. And I know that kind of complication all too well, despite my own rituals being well planned-out and in a calm environment. As an example, the releasing of a Quarter or the God or Goddess usually ends in my family with the phrase "Stay if you will, go if you must, but take with you our love and blessings. So mote it be." One ritual, I released Air with "Stay if you must, go if you will." We joked that this was, essentially, "kicking out" Air, but I can see that taken up to eleven in a mission thanks to the Law of Comedy. Air isn't just tied to communication, it enables communication, so such a stunt will probably end up with the Agents not being able to communicate for some reason or another, say, Cheesy's Universal Translator malfunctioning.
The thing about Cakes and Ale is that it's a catchall. It does both jobs- grounding and centering as well as restoring. If you need to substitute, you'll have to substitute with something that's probably more specialized.
For example, listening to calming music would definitely work for the Agents, who need to rest and regain strength. However, it's a bad idea for the canons to simply listen to calming music, because the whole point of the music is to sweep you away. Right then is when they're most vulnerable to their spirit- here, their actual characterization- being lost somewhere and, best case scenario, ending up stuck inside a background character, who doesn't have characterization to begin with and is a perfect place for lost characterization to end up. (I'm calling it now, this happens to an MLP character. It'll be easy seeing as there's so many well-known background characters to choose from.) Calming music leads to wandering minds, which in this weakened state leads to wandering characterization. It's used as meditation music for a reason.
As for complications in the ritual, yes, that is a problem. And I know that kind of complication all too well, despite my own rituals being well planned-out and in a calm environment. As an example, the releasing of a Quarter or the God or Goddess usually ends in my family with the phrase "Stay if you will, go if you must, but take with you our love and blessings. So mote it be." One ritual, I released Air with "Stay if you must, go if you will." We joked that this was, essentially, "kicking out" Air, but I can see that taken up to eleven in a mission thanks to the Law of Comedy. Air isn't just tied to communication, it enables communication, so such a stunt will probably end up with the Agents not being able to communicate for some reason or another, say, Cheesy's Universal Translator malfunctioning.